We're Home

Well its half past one in the morning and I'm wide awake!! So here I am blogging!!

We spent our last few hours in Florida walking up I-Drive and visiting some of the hundreds of souvenir shops. I got Little Prince and his friend at school matching Mickey Mouse t-shirts, it took ages to find two the right size/design - even with the thousands of t-shirts there must have been waiting to be bought!! We saw a Chuck E Cheese, and Little Prince insisted on going in, he'd seen TV adverts for it when we visited America last time and was desperate to go! Trouble is the lady admitting people, spoke very little English and we couldn't understand her explanation of what to do! It was LOUD and very confusing, so much to Little Prince's disgust we just went straight back out again! Instead we had lunch in an all you can eat pizza buffet place. Some guests really got their money's worth, they were stacking their plates high and revisiting the buffet bar numerous times!! At first Little Prince refused to eat anything, but once he saw me and Mad Cat Lady eating he changed his mind. He still has very little appetite and I just hope that it improves once we get home and he's eating familiar food again.

We got back to the hotel in plenty of time to wait for our transfer back to the airport. More than enough time as the transfer coach was late!! Little Prince ran round the lobby with another little boy and had a lot of fun :-) The coach back to the airport was lovely, very modern and comfortable. We sat right behind the driver and Little Prince could see his stash of chocolate milk, and kept asking me to tell the driver he wanted it!! Eventually he fell asleep - Little Prince not the driver!! He wasn't happy to be woken up at the airport and was very grumpy with me. Once our suitcases had been unloaded we went and joined the check in queue, which took forever! There were two queues - ours and the one for passengers who'd paid extra for the Premium package, which includes a faster check in!! Now I know how everyone felt watching us go straight to the front of the queue at Disney with our Guest Assistance Pass!! We were getting quite worried as the check in staff were weighing all bags, including carry ons, and ours were most likely over the weight limits!! However, it all worked out as our checked in bags were under the combined three person weight limit, and the check in girl didn't weigh Little Prince's play bag :-) We went straight through to security and for once me and Mad Cat Lady didn't beep as we passed through the metal detectors - Little Prince did (probably the carabena we use to fasten his blankie to his clothes). The security guards didn't bother searching him and just waved us through!!

We sat around in the lounge for a while, grabbed a bite to eat and let Little Prince run off some energy! I'm sure the other passengers were watching him run round and round and wondering what on earth he'd be like on the plane lol. Once boarding was announced we were all loaded on pretty quickly. Little Prince is definitely Mr Messy's son!! We were passing through the Premium seats and Little Prince was trying to sit down, insisting that these were very nice seats and he wanted to sit there!! Once we passed through to cattle class, he started to try and grab and throw the cushions on the seats and exclaim that these were rubbish and he wouldn't sit here!!! Our seats were almost at the back of the plane, so it was quite 'interesting' getting him to his seat without trashing the plane!! Once we were settled in, one of the stewardesses came and apologised to Mad Cat Lady that her seat's remote control wasn't working (it had been mine on the way out!!). Mad Cat Lady was mad!! She made a fuss, but as the plane was very full they would only be able to move her and she didn't want to leave us, although if they'd offered her a Premium seat I think it would have been a harder choice!! They did give us complimentary drinks and upgrade mine and Little Prince's TV choices for free though, which mollified Mad Cat Lady a little.

I don't like the way the airline (charter) comes round first with a trolley full of snacks you have to buy, before serving the free meal! But it makes good business sense, even if it is hard on the wallet with a hungry child watching familiar snacks trundle past!! None of us enjoyed the meal this time, but with a lot of swapping between ourselves we managed to all eat something! Once the cabin lights were dimmed I got Little Prince to lie down and go to sleep, and he slept for the rest of the journey. Which is more than I can say for most of the kids on the flight!! One child screamed very loudly for over an hour, waking everyone up and the parent's didn't seem to do anything - perhaps they are used to it and can sleep through it?!?! So me and Mad Cat Lady got very little sleep on the journey and were absolutely exhausted by the time we landed!

We landed an hour early and got through Immigration (or is it UK Border Patrol now??) very quickly too. Unfortunately it took forever to unload the luggage from the plane, and we stood around for ages waiting. Little Prince mentioned that his tummy felt hurty, while we were waiting but then seemed to brighten up (notice I said 'seemed'!!!). Once we'd finally got our cases we headed off through Customs, we turned the corner into the Customs corridor and Little Prince threw up EVERYWHERE!!! I managed to get him over to the side and start cleaning him up and calming him down. There were a few choice comments from other passengers as they came into the corridor, but quite a few sympathetic ones from other parent's too. Mad Cat Lady left all her bags and suitcases and ran off to find some help. Once I'd finished cleaning up Little Prince and he seemed ok again, we hung around waiting for Mad Cat Lady. It became obvious she wasn't coming back, so I grabbed all the bags and suitcases somehow and got me and Little Prince through the exit. Mad Cat Lady was there waiting, as she had passed through Customs she wasn't allowed to go back through to help us!! She had argued with the security guard, but she had just had to wait helplessly for us!! Its a good job Little Prince was able to walk or I wouldn't have been able to manage all the bags and would have been completely stuck!!

It was quite a surprise not to see Mr Messy stood waiting for us!! I had been so looking forward to him being there, and he wasn't!!! We had no idea where he was and no way of getting in touch with him, and a sickly Little Prince to deal with - not a great welcome home!! We dragged our suitcases over to the coffee shop and sat there and waited. It seemed like ages, but wasn't really, before a flustered Mr Messy came into sight - and a very welcome sight he was too :-) The traffic on the way to the airport had been horrendous and he had been caught up in it. I was very happy to hand over my very heavy suitcase for him to drag to the car!!

On the way home Little Prince talked non stop about wanting to go to school, asking if Daddy could go straight to school, asking what time he would get to school!! We tried to argue that he wasn't well and it wasn't a good idea, but after a while we just let him chatter!! It didn't take long to get to Mad Cat Lady's house, where we helped her in with her bags, before going home ourselves. It was lovely to arrive home :-) Little Prince headed straight for his toy box and begain emptying it everywhere - checking everything was still there I presume!! I found the photos we'd had printed when we got the Photopass CD and showed them to Mr Messy :-) Then we decided to go out for some nice English breakfast :-) The first place we tried had no bacon, and Mr Messy and Little Prince wanted bacon butties, the next place we thought of doesn't open on Mondays, but the third place was open, had bacon and so we stopped there!!! Little Prince STILL didn't eat very much, about half of his bacon and none of his bread!! He fell asleep in the car on the way home, but woke up when we ladi him on the sofa for a nap.

I then had to run round finding some clothes to wear for a meeting we had planned for early afternoon. Luckily I still fitted into what I'd planned to wear - a close thing after all those American size portions!! We dropped Little Prince off at my friend's house and set off for our meeting. I'll blog about the meeting once I've had chance to tell everyone I need to tell about it!! I rang and spoke to a very sleepy, and quite grumpy LMS on the way to the meeeting, it would have been nicer to actually see her, but talking to her was lovely :-) I've missed her so much. I rang my friend on the way home from the meeting and she said Little Prince had been really good, and played nicely and then fallen asleep!! He was still asleep when we arrived at her house to pick him up, and wasn't very happy that he wouldn't see his friend as he was going home before she got home from school!! As soon as we got home again he snuggled up on my knee and almost went back to sleep! I had a very difficult time keeping him awake for long enough to see Drama Teen when she got home from school. It was lovely seeing her again, I've missed her so much. I couldn't keep Little Prince awake any longer and he was soon deeply asleep, I was feeling extremely tired myself so I put him to bed and went to bed myself! Apparently Little Prince woke up around 7pm had something to eat and went back to bed. I didn't wake up until Mr Messy came to bed, and then couldn't get back to sleep and came downstairs to blog so that I didn't disturb Mr Messy.

Mr Messy has just been downstairs to find out what was going on! Little Prince had woken up sobbing (I didn't even hear him!) about his lost autograph book, and Mr Messy had seen the light on downstairs and come to investigate. He's at work in the morning so has had to go back to bed. I'm wide awake, but know that I've got to sleep or I'll never get up in the morning and I've got to try and get my bodyclock back on UK time again!! So I'm off back to bed to try and get some sleep!!! Night night :-)